Monday, September 22, 2014

Re-armageddon!

Look out rapture fans, they're rebooting the apocalypse! That's right, Left Behind is getting a reboot powered by the unbeatable box office gold that is Nicolas Cage.

Nicolas Cage's most recent role was in the short-lived internet meme:'Hey, that guy from the 1800's kind of looks like Nicolas Cage. Spooky, huh?'

Co-authors Lahaye and Jenkins are all that stand between us and the Gayluminati.

What the shit is Left Behind you ask? Make yourself comfortable. I'll explain. Left Behind is a series of novels by Tim LaHaye, an evangelical minister and a novelist called Jerry B. Jenkins, who I'm guessing did all the heavy-lifting. I mean, LaHaye's got a lot on his plate already what with warning everyone about the gays and the Illuminati. You know, the secret international conspiracy that's been manipulating global events in an effort to establish a one-world government? Oh, yes, he's one of those. Check out some of his tin-foil hat-worthy ramblings:

"Having read at least fifty books on the illuminati, I am convinced that it exists and can be blamed for many of man's inhumane actions against his fellow man during the past two hundred years."

-Tim LaHaye,
spouting some crazy

You know, I've read a lot of books about wizards, but it doesn't meanwe can blame them for the last 200 years of people being dicks to each other.

Above: Buddhist monks totally
wasting their time seeking a state of
enlightened detachment...suckers

But I digress. LaHaye's books are are about the rapture, which, according some Christians, is when all true-believers will be beamed up to heaven to watch the rest of us amoral heathens suffer through a thousand years war leading up to Judgement Day. You see, in the Left Behind universe, God only raptures those who subscribe to a super-specific branch of theological belief. Which one? Why Premillennial dispensationalist eschatological protestant Christianity of course. Which kind of begs the question: why is God such a dick?

I mean, if there was really one true belief system and the rest were just decoys or traps there to damn people to an eternity of pitch fork poking and Jean-Paul Sartre plays, why would God or whoever bury it in some bullshit secret code in the craziest book of the Bible? Like, is he trying to get us to buy the strategy guide?

It's goddamn Deborah Cliff all over again...*

"Holy shit, look out! God's love is everywhere! We're doomed!"

-Left Behind, The Comic Book

If it sounds like I'm a little peeved that such a book/movie/video game/soulless media franchise, even exists much less is getting a big-budget reboot, it's because I am. There's just something transparently wish-fullfilly about writing a story about God proving your worldview 100% correct and then forcing everyone who disagrees with you to endure a thousand years of horror. And for a guy who presents himself as an authority on a religion ostensibly about things like peace and love, the whole thing seems a little, what's the phrase? Contrary? Aggressively hypocritical? Horseshit?

But what do I know? I'm ragging on things I don't know anything about and have absolutely no stake in, so please, take my ranting with the requisite measure of salt. How much salt? Oh, I'd say about 5'2" and hundred and twenty pounds or so? I don't know, whatever a bronze-age woman might have weighed.

"Look, in my defense, I did warn Lot's wife not to look backat the spectacular scene of fire and destruction behind them. What was I supposed to do? Not murder her?"

-God

*+5 to your nerd roll. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's this puzzle in Simon's Quest in which you have to find a crystal and then-you know what? You could google it, but really you just had to be there.

Oh, and one more thing...

Did I mention that Cage will be playing an airline pilot named Rayford Steele? Yup, Rayford Steele. And if that didn't stretch credulity enough in a movie about the rapture, Rayford goddamn Steele doesn't even moonlight as a gay porn star. Can you believe it?